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Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process is an introduction to
language, law and society for advanced undergraduate and
postgraduate students. Its central focus is the exploration of what
sociolinguistic research can tell us about how language works and
doesn't work in the legal process. Written for readers who may not
have prior knowledge of sociolinguistics or the law, the book has
an accessible style combined with discussion questions and
exercises as well as topics for assignments, term papers, theses
and dissertations. A wide range of legal contexts are investigated,
including courtroom hearings, police interviews, lawyer interviews
as well as small claims courts, mediation, youth justice
conferencing and indigenous courts. The final chapter looks at how
sociolinguists can contribute to the legal process: as expert
witnesses, through legal education, and through investigating the
role of language in the perpetuation of inequality in and through
the legal process.
The book uses critical sociolinguistic analysis to examine the
social consequences of courtroom talk. The focus of the study is
the cross-examination of three Australian Aboriginal boys who were
prosecution witnesses in the case of six police officers charged
with their abduction. The analysis reveals how the language
mechanisms allowed by courtroom rules of evidence serve to
legitimize neocolonial control over Indigenous people. In the
propositions and assertions made in cross-examination, and their
adoption by judicial decision-makers, the three boys were
constructed not as victims of police abuse, but rather in terms of
difference, deviance and delinquency. This identity work addresses
fundamental issues concerning what it means to be an Aboriginal
young person, as well as constraints about how to perform or live
this identity, and the rights to which Aboriginal people can lay
claim, while legitimizing police control over their freedom of
movement. Understanding this courtroom talk requires analysis of
the sociopolitical and historical actions and structures within
which the courtroom hearing was embedded. Through this analysis,
the interrelatedness of structure, agency, constraint and change,
which is central to critical sociolinguistics, becomes apparent. In
its investigation of language ideologies that underpin courtroom
talk, as well as the details of how language is used, and the
social consequences of this talk, the book highlights the need for
far-reaching changes to courtroom rules of evidence.
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